Allen & Heath DT168 Stage Box

The DT168 is Allen & Heath's answer to a specific but common problem: you have a Dante network already running to your stage, and you need a reliable, rackmountable analog front-end that speaks that language natively. Sixteen mic preamps go in, eight line outputs come back out, and all of it moves over a single EtherCon run via Dante. It sits cleanly inside the SQ, Avantis, and dLive ecosystems, where patching is handled in the console software without a separate Dante Controller session for basic routing. That tight integration is the whole pitch.

Three rack units and 6.5 kg means this fits a standard stage rack without drama, and the 250 mm depth won't fight shallow touring cases. Power draw sits at 50 W nominal with a 70 W ceiling — plan for the higher number when you're speccing a PDU. The dual EtherCon ports give you primary and secondary Dante paths, which matters the moment a cable gets kicked at a festival; redundancy on a network stage box is not a luxury. Front-panel metering on all inputs means you can confirm signal at the box without walking back to the console, which saves real time during a fast line-check.

If your console is already an SQ, Avantis, or dLive, this is a logical and well-supported choice — the ecosystem integration removes a layer of configuration friction that third-party Dante boxes introduce. If you're running a different console manufacturer's ecosystem, or if your network infrastructure isn't already Dante, the value proposition weakens considerably and you should look at alternatives that match your actual network topology. This is also not the right tool if you need more than eight discrete analog returns to stage; for larger output counts you'll be stacking units or looking at a bigger expander.